BMW's Krueger says Mini EV will be built in UK even without Brexit assurances

Mini's new EV will be a variant of the core three-door model built in Oxford.

FRANKFURT -- BMW CEO Harald Krueger said the German carmaker chose to build an electric version of its Mini without receiving any assurances or incentives from British authorities.

"There were no concessions from authorities," Krueger said in a call with journalists to discuss second-quarter results on Thursday.

BMW said last month that its Mini plant in Oxford, England, has been chosen as the location to produce the EV starting in 2019. The automaker said at the time it did not receive any reassurances from the British government over post-Brexit trading arrangements.

Last month, two sources told Reuters the UK government helped to secure a 240-million-pound ($314 million) investment from Toyota with a letter reassuring the Japanese carmaker over trading conditions following Brexit.

The battery-powered car will be a variant of the brand's core three-door model, BMW said.

Additional electrified models will be brought to market in the coming years and beyond 2020 when a next-generation vehicle architecture will enable further full-electric vehicles, BMW said.

The Mini EV's electric drivetrain will be built at BMW's e-mobility facilities at plants Dingolfing and Landshut in Bavaria before being integrated into the car at Oxford, which is the main production location for the Mini three-door model.

The model will be produced at the plant until at least 2023, a person familiar with the decision told Bloomberg. The relatively short time frame for the production run for the model -- four years, compared to the typical seven -- gives BMW the opportunity to shift the car elsewhere with the next revamp of the vehicle if necessary, the person said.